Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Hindutva (BJP) inspired mobs are killing Muslims and Dalits in India

(While the snippet from the article below is about acts of violence against Muslims, Dalits in India have also been routinely targeted by these Hindu nationalists.) 

In India, killing cows and the consumption of beef is banned in most states. Since Modi and his party assumed power in 2014, this beef ban has been used by Hindu nationalists to justify their attacks on innocent Muslims in public. [….] [Prime Minister] Modi’s government … routinely disseminates fake news, targeting and demonising Indian Muslims.” The full article from The Guardian by Rana Ayyub is here.
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The Member States of the United Nations have acknowledged that they have the primary responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of these crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means, and is consistent with existing obligations under international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law. The international community has a parallel responsibility to encourage and assist States to fulfil their responsibilities towards their populations. The policy options presented here are aimed specifically at preventing incitement to violence that could lead to atrocity crimes. They should be placed in the broader context of the structural and operational measures that States and the international community can take to protect populations from these crimes, which are set out in the reports of the Secretary-General on the responsibility to protect.” 
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It is awfully clear that the government of India is ignoring its “responsibility to protect” obligations under international human rights instruments and international law. At some point we have sufficient evidence for the crime of “incitement to genocide,” keeping in mind that acts of genocide do not have to occur for this to be a crime in international criminal law (‘incitement’ is classed as an ‘inchoate’ crime, meaning that it does not require completion of a harmful act for the assignment of criminal liability). Incitement is defined as “encouraging or persuading another to commit an offence,” and under both the Genocide Convention and the more recent Rwanda Tribunal Statute, “direct and public incitement is expressly defined as a specific crime, punishable as such.” [I hope to write more about this in the near future.]

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